In the blog titled “Nine Propositions Toward a Cultural Theory of YouTube”, Henry Jenkins examines the influence that social media sites like YouTube are having, and potentially will have, on society.  One of these nine propositions that Jenkins investigates is the notion that YouTube functions as an important site for citizen journalists.  With the technology that is present today, the amount of people who can contribute stories and images has significantly increased.  However, that being said, an interesting point to take into account is if because of sites like YouTube, do we need to alter who we define as an actual journalist?  Previously the belief was that Journalism was an actual profession or career.  However with sites like YouTube, where posters literally need no credentials whatsoever and yet who Jenkins still terms “citizen journalists”, this aspect of Journalism as a profession is severely undercut.

You can read Jenkins full article here:

http://www.henryjenkins.org/2007/05/9_propositions_towards_a_cultu.html

Henry Jenkins is the Provost’s Professor of Communications, Journalism, and Cinematic Art at the University of Southern California. Until recently, he served as the co-founder of the Comparative Media Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. More about Henry Jenkins isavailable here.

p.s.  Here is a perfect example of citizen journalism at work:

UC Davis Pepper Spray

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4

After going through a number of potential web designs I have found really prefer Tim Potter’s design the most.  I found Pottter’s website through the sight “Design Bombs” (URL listed as http://www.designbombs.com) and I was immediately drawn to the simplicity of the site and how user friendly it is.  Navigation through this site is pretty straight forward with a navigation bar at the top that suggests links ranging from “What I do” to “My Work”.  Not only that, but the Splash page itself is interactive and aesthetically appealing as there are videos and images.  That being said, TIm still maintains the simplicity of the his site and doesn’t clutter the Home page with unnecessary media.  The Splash page is actually one long web page, however by clicking on the links at the top of the site, you automatically scroll to the correct place on the Splash page itself that holds the information requested.

In order to make navigation of the page even easier, Tim has included a “Top” button that floats on the left side of the screen and stays with you as you scroll down or up.  That way, anytime you need to return to the navigation bar at the top you have an easily accessible means of getting there.  Great Feature.

I really like this idea of making the website one whole page.  However, with the amount of writing that is going to be on my site I will need to include at least a couple of alternate pages that can be accessed from the splash page through links.  That being said, I’m thinking of trying to go Tim’s route and fit as much as I can on the Splash page, without cluttering it up, and have a “Top” button to access it all coupled with a navigation bar at the top. It’s a great design.

Link to Tim’s Page:

http://tejpotter.com/index.php#home

In her ethnographic study titled “Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life“, Danah Boyd, also known as Danah Michele Boyd, discusses the forced evolution of “the public” caused by the Internet and how teens are attempting to navigate this new online society.  Boyd suggests that the notion “the public” is beginning to alter itself because of the inclusion of such sites as MySpace and Facebook.  These sites, she argues, present teens with an ability to interact with an enormous, abstract group of peers through the Internet.  Because of this, teens lives today are far more transparent and prone to critic than in the past.

Boyd suggests that the phenomena of social networking has forced teens to include four new categories of social interactions; Persistence, Searchability,  Replicability, and the Invisible Audience.  These interactions, conducted solely on the Internet, are the causes for this increased transparency in teens lives in society today.  Boyd goes on to suggest that these sites are then becoming a new sort of “online public” and that the social interactions previously stated are characteristics of the interactions that occur in these new public domains.  Because humans define themselves by how they interact with others, these social networks are becoming online societies in which users are creating identities for themselves.

Boyd doesn’t suggest that she can extrapolate the ramifications of this new form of social interaction on teens today, but she does state that to try and regulate these new public spaces will effectively ostracize these younger generations from the older.  In her conclusion, Boyd calls for adults to, instead of attempting to police these sites, rather act as guides to the younger generations of users who are interacting with them.  The reason being that this technology is not going away anytime in the near future, so we need to be able to begin coexisting with it now.

“Danah Michele Boyd is an American social media researcher known for her public commentary on the use of social media sites by youth.”

In the book titled, “The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture”, the author Andrew Keen, discusses how the saturation of the internet with, what he terms amateur content, has lead to a degradation of our culture. Keen presents his argument through the metaphor of the “infinite monkey theorem” which states that “if you provide infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters, some monkey somewhere will eventually create a masterpiece-a play by Shakespeare, a Platonic dialogue, or an economic treatise by Adam Smith.”  Keen takes this theory and applies it to the present day internet, in which the monkeys are Internet users and the typewriters are our computers.

The implications of Keens argument are intriguing.  Some, including myself, have always believed that the internet is a medium by which creativity and originality can flourish.  Because it is so accessible, the ease with which one can present a new idea if significantly increased.  However, that being said, what if, as Keen suggests, those “new ideas” are not so constructive to the cultural and moral fabric of society.  Keen points to websites such as YouTube and Facebook as being web environments where cultural demoralizing ideas take root and expand.  Examples include “The Easter Bunny Hates You Video” which received three million views in a week, as well as videos of dancing stuffed monkeys.  Keen argues that these videos and ideas that are now pervading the Internet, are destroying the legitimacy of what he calls, the “collective intelligence”, or the sum wisdom of search engine and web users.  Essentially, at the core of the matter for Keen is that the internet is creating a generation in which truth and morality are extraneous terms.

In Keen’s TechCrunch TV site, the author conducts a series of interviews with numerous tech savvy individuals.  One such individual is Adam Lashinsky, author of “Inside Apple”.  During the interview in which Lashinsky discusses some of the inner most workings of Apple, he suggests that Apple’s corporate structure is suggestive of that of a terrorist cell in which members do not have a complete understanding of the “business plan” that is being professed by their company or cell.

This notion is connected to Keen’s book through the theme of a lack of understanding.  It seems to me that this corralling of what knowledge is granted to members within Apple is reflected in the users of the Internet as well.  Wikipedia is another example that Keen uses that suggests this continuous theme as well.  The fact that people are able alter any information on Wikipedia, even if its wrong information, suggests that this lack of concrete facts and truths is creating a sense of ignorance that is not only beginning to be represented in society, but which is already present in Apple’s hierarchy as well.

The Huffington Post is an online newspaper that is a part of a greater network of bloggers, journalists, and free lance writers.  The Post recently published an exclusive excerpt from Micah L. Sifry’s new book “WikiLeaks and the Age of Transparency”.  The excerpt can be found here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/09/wikileaks-assange-transparency_n_820348.html.

Sifry, who is the cofounder and editor of the Personal Democracy Forum as well as a consultant on “how political organizations, campaigns, non-profits and media entities can adapt to and thrive in a networked world”, wrote his book in order to examine the pertinent question of how the internet should/could be used to hold governments accountable for their actions.  He explores this notion through the lens of WikiLeaks, the online network that was and is being used to bring about what Sifry terms, an “Age of Transparency” in regards to open information sharing and whistle blowing; in essence, holding our own governments accountable for their actions.

Sifry makes an intriguing argument that regardless of if WikiLeaks continues to exist or not, the internet has allowed there to be a closer proximity in regards to information sharing between people than ever before.  This proximity suggests that transparency is the new norm and that governments attempting hide and conceal pertinent information from their public will no longer be allowed to do so.

I understand that this “Age of Transparency” has numerous cons, however I believe that the overall affect of this on governments, specifically on the policy and actions taken by those entities, will be beneficial in moving our society toward a more pure form of democracy.